


Mending a Broken Heart

by GreyHaven



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cookie the dog - Freeform, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Fluff, Gen, Nathan has a friend, emotional angst, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15816912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyHaven/pseuds/GreyHaven
Summary: Nathan was on his third whiskey when Dwight came into the bar.  On top of the four beers - at least he thought it was four, but he couldn’t be certain and maybe it was best he didn’t count them anyway - he was feeling pleasantly buzzed and well on his way to being drunk.Which was exactly what he’d been aiming for.Haven was mostly rebuilt.  All the building work was done, people had homes, businesses were reopening.  It was all done.  Cats in trees, that was his biggest worry now.  And that meant that everything that had given him a purpose since… since…  That was all gone now.**Heads up for my regular readers that this fic is canon ending compliant**





	Mending a Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nocticola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nocticola/gifts).



> For Nocticola who writes awesome Cookie The Dog fics <3 <3 <3
> 
> Set post-canon/pre-epilogue and in case you missed it in the summary - a heads up for my regular readers that this fic is canon ending compliant.

Nathan was on his third whiskey when Dwight came into the bar.  On top of the four beers - at least he thought it was four, but he couldn’t be certain and maybe it was best he didn’t count them anyway - he was feeling pleasantly buzzed and well on his way to being drunk.

Which was exactly what he’d been aiming for.

Haven was mostly rebuilt.  All the building work was done, people had homes, businesses were reopening.  It was all done. Cats in trees, that was his biggest worry now. And that meant that everything that had given him a purpose since…  _ since… _  That was all gone now.

Not having a focus gave him time to think and thinking was  _ bad.  Thinking _ was exactly why he was sitting in the Rope Loft at four o’clock in the afternoon and steadily getting drunk.  At some point, he was going to have to find a new focus but not right now. Right now he was going to drown his sorrows.

Dwight pulled up a bar stool beside him with a raise of his eyebrows which Nathan took as a greeting.  He nodded his own greeting, just once, a dip of his head, and slid a ten dollar bill across the bar to buy Dwight the beer he’d just ordered, and another whiskey for himself.

“You ok, man?” Dwight asked, raising his bottle for a toast and Nathan  _ couldn’t.   _ He raised his glass in return but he couldn’t clink it against Dwight’s bottle.  It reminded him too much of Duke and he shook his head.

He’d promised Audrey he’d be ok, he’d promised Duke he’d repay the debt and so far he only felt as though he was failing them both.  But if there was one thing he’d learnt from the Troubles, it was that life was too damn short for anything except honesty. No time for playing games and pretending.  So honesty it was. Not matter how hard that was.

“Not really.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

No.  No, he didn’t, but there was always the possibility that Dwight was acting on instructions given to him by Audrey before… Before.  Instructions to make sure he was really ok and not just pretending. It would be just like her to do something like that, to make sure he had someone to talk to.  At least it was Dwight, not a therapist. Or Gloria. Gloria would’ve drunk him under the table by now. And cussed him out for being stupid.

Working on the basis that Dwight was as good a person to talk to as any, Nathan stared morosely into his whiskey glass.  “I lost count,” he mumbled.

“...What?”

“I lost track of them.  I used to count and I lost track.”

“Ok,” Dwight said slowly.  “Gonna need you to be more specific here.”

Nathan let out a dry, harsh laugh.  It was a fair request, he was kinda talking around the issue.  “People who died because of the Troubles. Because I couldn’t save them.  I lost count.”

A fact which haunted him every day.

“You did the best you could.”

“Wasn’t enough.”

“Never would’ve been enough.”

Fair point.  One which Nathan wasn’t ready to concede so he changed the subject.  “Duke’s gone, Audrey’s gone -” his voice cracked when he said Audrey’s name “- Vince and Dave are gone...”  

They were like uncles to him, friends of his father who he’d grown up with.  They were  _ family.   _ They deserved his grief.  

“I know,” Dwight said, taking a long sip of his beer and gave Nathan a considering look.  “But you’re still here.”

“Shouldn’t be.”

The words escaped from Nathan before he could stop them and he took a swig of his whiskey before any more words could tumble from his lips.  It burned going down, a tiny comfort that he would have given up if it had meant that everyone could have survived. He would have given up being able to feel forever if he could have saved just one life.  

“You’ll get through this.”

No, no he wouldn’t.  But Nathan wasn’t particularly inclined to argue his point.  No when he knew Dwight was dealing with his own guilt. All of his unit in Afghanistan.  Lizzie. Even though she’d come back, Nathan knew he was haunted by the memory of having lost her.  Dwight had his own issues and maybe reminding Nathan that he’d get through this was more for his own benefit than for Nathan’s.

“Yeah,” he agreed and he must have sounded convincing enough because Dwight drained the last of his beer and clapped him on the back, hard enough to hurt.  He gave Nathan a nod and squeezed his shoulder before he left.

Nathan went back to his drinking.

*

Days off still felt like a luxury he didn’t deserve but it was a good thing he wasn’t working the following day because he was still blearily hungover at lunchtime.  No matter how much water he drank, how many cups of coffee he poured down his throat, his head thudded and the light hurt his eyes.

None of which was helped by the fact he’d woken from a deep sleep and a dream that was so real that he’d reached out for Audrey and found his bed as cold and empty as it had been every morning for weeks.  Panic had risen in him for longer than it should have before the sinking realisation had hit him.

Audrey was gone.  Dreaming of her wouldn’t bring her back.

So he was moping.  Dwelling on things.  Sitting around his small house with all the memories and doing exactly what he knew was bad for him.  He should be  _ busy.   _ But still, he couldn’t make himself get up and get on with anything more complicated than making another pot of coffee.

He was doing just that when the doorbell rang, the sound like a spike piercing his brain and he abandoned his coffee making to hurry to the door before it could ring again.

Dwight stood on the other side of the door, smiling and holding a red lead which was attached to a dog.  To be specific, a tri-coloured dog, black and tan and white, medium sized, which looked so familiar that Nathan couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

“Is that…?”

“I think Audrey called him Cookie,” Dwight said, his smile broadening.

Nathan smiled back, his hangover forgotten.  “She did. She always wished she could have kept him but…”  

His heart twisted at the memory.  The way Audrey had shut herself off from everything the minute she’d found out about the Hunter Storm.  She’d pushed him away, given up Cookie… He hadn’t understood at the time. Now he did. He cleared his throat.  “Where’d you find him?”

“He was roaming.  No owner, I checked with the shelter.  Lizzie wanted to keep him but...we have Sloan and I told her you could use a friend.  She decided Cookie should keep you company instead.”

Lost for words, Nathan stared back at him, his mouth hanging open.

“I mean, if you’d rather not…” Dwight was frowning now and Nathan answered quickly.

“No, no, I do,” he said as he crouched in front of Cookie to make a fuss of him, ruffling his hands around the soft fur, laughing when Cookie licked his face.

*

The next morning, Nathan woke with the sun streaming in through the thin curtains, pinned to the bed by a grinning, panting, Cookie who clearly wanted him to wake up and play.

Maybe everything would be ok after all.


End file.
